Hyperparameter and Neural Architecture Search via Evolutionary Optimization for Reinforcement Learning: HPNAS-RL

Nihal Acharya Adde, Hanno Gottschalk

In this study, we propose a dual-branch evolutionary framework that simultaneously performs Neural Architecture Search (NAS) and Hyperparameter Optimization (HPO) for Reinforcement Learning (RL) in Autonomous Driving (AD) tasks. While NAS has shown strong potential in automating architecture design for Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), its application to RL remains limited, especially in scenarios that require joint optimization of architectural and training dynamics. Building on our prior work on Evolutionary Multi-Objective NAS (EMNAS), the proposed framework evolves discrete network architectures and continuous hyperparameters in parallel under a unified multi-objective search strategy. In this setup, NAS targets the convolutional layers of the RL policy network - responsible for visual feature extraction, while HPO focuses on optimizing critical RL hyperparameters. To accelerate convergence and improve generalization, we incorporate parallel evaluation and a teacher-student policy transfer mechanism. Experiments in a high-fidelity driving simulator show that the joint NAS-HPO framework consistently outperforms standalone NAS, yielding policies with higher rewards, fewer…